In the face of this lack of proof, some claim that if humans aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem. This is a classic non-sequitur argument for fools that can easily be twisted into: if you aren't part of the problem, you are part of the solution.
you're logic is not quite right there- statement A (if you are not part of the solution, you are problem) is not the same as B (if you are not part of the problem, you are part of the solution). A implies that if you are not helping, you are doing harm; B that if you are not harming, you are helping. Surely you can see the difference in that.
Aside from that, while I agree with your previous points -that we don't know the true cause of global warming, whether it is human or natural, etc- it still makes sense to err on the side of caution and strive to make as little impact on our environment as reasonably possible unless we are very sure it will be a positive one. We have much more reason to believe that the Earth will continue to support human life if we reduce our impact on the environment than if we continue to increase it.
I first started using computers when my dad brought home our Kaypro 4MHz 8088. I learned DOS by watching over my dad's shoulder, and then trying to play games between when I got home from school and when he got home from work.
as far as teaching programming goes, try karel the robot that's what we used in high school before learning pascal, and it made the structures seem very logical.
I really think the biosphere 2 people got it wrong by trying to recreate all the various biomes of the Earth in one building. That, and the whole issue with the concrete reacting with their atmosphere says to me that they really didn't plan very well. I'd like to see someone try to make a contained ecosystem that is engineered with the sole purpose of keeping some humans alive and comfortable. I wonder how many species of plants and animals would be necessary for such a thing.
It seems like it could be a lot simpler than what Biosphere 2 tried to do, and a lot more likely to be successful. It would also be beneficial in helping us figure out what we'll need for long-term space missions.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but don't the Sonny Bono act, the DMCA, and the filesharing lawsuits really help further erode corporate control over the media?
I mean, if a band wants to make a song that "the man" doesn't want you to hear, they'll have a hard time getting it published by a big record label or played on the radio stations that are all owned by ClearChannel. So, maybe they'll release it for free over the Internet. Not that they will be, if the government ever were successful at eliminating all copyright infringement, it's only the non-corporate-sanctioned independent voices that people will be able to find on filesharing programs.
i just don't see the correlation between copyright enforcement measures and centralized culture control. the copyrights are just there so that they can ensure that they profit off of the products that the centralized culture control has already generated a demand for.
this kinda reminds me of this story about the pricing of the original mac. their initial target price was $500, but the final design ended up being around $1,500. Then due to incresed costs and a lame decision by the board, it ended up starting out at $2,500, which prevented them from ever gaining a huge marketshare, which led to all sorts of problems later on.
maybe now with microsoft looking pretty weak with their security problems and continually delaying longhorn, and with the problems intel is having and the rest of the PC market is having Apple is seeing this as a chance to make up for past mistakes and finally sell the "computer for everyone" they originally intended.
well, warning systems would be good for tsunamis and such, but aside from getting out of the way and making stronger buildings, there's not much that can be done to prevent such things from happening. it's not like we could oil the tectonic plates to make them move smoothly, or something. if we detect an asteroid decades out, we might be able to do something about it. we have to ignore the millions of possibilities of things that could randomly kill us at any moment because we can't do much to prevent them from happening, but we truly get alarmed when we see something coming.
with all the free and open wi-fi points in the world, i guess it's time file sharers went wireless. i suppose that could be a viable defense, as well, if one has an open wi-fi router at home. that is, of course, until the po-po confiscates your computer and finds all your warez on it...
duh- i was making fun of your misformed substitution. i guess you wouldn't get a joke anyway, because you clearly didn't recognize that the original post was a joke as well...
i'm a temp, and my present employer blocks gmail and all other webmail (strangely, they don't block slashdot, EXCEPT for linux.slashdot.org), so I've got my gmail account forwarded to my work e-mail address. I wish I could tell gmail not to forward messages it has identified as spam. So far it has identified all spam perfectly, I don't want to receive the spam at work anyway, and the company sends a lot of HTML formatted mail with images, so I can't really turn off inline images in outlook for security. Do you hear me google? A "do not forward messages identified as spam" checkbox would be nice...
I said you were being a dick because you interpreted my assertion that "they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable" to mean that I'm too stupid to know how to find things, and to mean that it was "automatically useless to all users"
Certainly things can be found on Gnutella, and it may work for lots of people- my only point was that what most people want is to type in what they're looking for and get it. In my experience, DC++ has come closest to this for even the most obscure files, but maybe we're looking for different kinds of stuff...
just try not to think (or sound as though you think) that just because people don't do things the way you do them that they are too dumb to figure them out.
no need to be a dick. the point is that if it's not easy for someone to figure out how to find stuff, it's not really where it should be yet. BitTorrent was pretty good once one found Suprnova, DC++ is pretty good once one figures out how to connect to a hub and put their settings on active. Similar things with eMule and gnutella, but none of them is simple search'n'get. gnutella or kazaa being probably the closest to that, except that it's often seach'n'get something else...
this is the same sort of thing that happened with the original Napster. Any sort of centralization is going to become an immediate target for MPAA/RIAA legal action. At least with BitTorrent there can be other sources for.torrent files, but so long as they can shut down any large repositories like suprnova.org, finding files will be too cumbersome for all but the most determined users.
DC++ seems to have the same weakness, with the hosts, but as long as host lists are legal, it will remain pretty easy to find new hosts. Gnutella seems pretty safe, but they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable.
alas, it is only a matter of time before something comes along that perfects this problem and leaves the MPAA/RIAA with no option but to come up with a new business model. Free music seems to me to be a fine way to advertise a touring artist who is making money off of the shows. Movies may have to resort to product placement, or something.
Slashdot Mirror
i meant your, not you're! i know that, i swear! d'oh!
In the face of this lack of proof, some claim that if humans aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem. This is a classic non-sequitur argument for fools that can easily be twisted into: if you aren't part of the problem, you are part of the solution.
you're logic is not quite right there- statement A (if you are not part of the solution, you are problem) is not the same as B (if you are not part of the problem, you are part of the solution). A implies that if you are not helping, you are doing harm; B that if you are not harming, you are helping. Surely you can see the difference in that.
Aside from that, while I agree with your previous points -that we don't know the true cause of global warming, whether it is human or natural, etc- it still makes sense to err on the side of caution and strive to make as little impact on our environment as reasonably possible unless we are very sure it will be a positive one. We have much more reason to believe that the Earth will continue to support human life if we reduce our impact on the environment than if we continue to increase it.
i wonder what it is they're normally speaking, because i learned a lot of that, whatever it is-
zuma zumma su sah?
munna munna zu zah?
sa sa mananu zah!
ha ha ha ha ha!
unfortunately, i have a speech impediment- i haven't been able to summon little floaty bubbles with icons in them next to my head...
maybe he wants his software to get actually USED by normal people who don't have time to fiddle with their OS constantly.
on that note, he should be making stuff for OS X...
I first started using computers when my dad brought home our Kaypro 4MHz 8088. I learned DOS by watching over my dad's shoulder, and then trying to play games between when I got home from school and when he got home from work.
as far as teaching programming goes, try karel the robot that's what we used in high school before learning pascal, and it made the structures seem very logical.
I really think the biosphere 2 people got it wrong by trying to recreate all the various biomes of the Earth in one building. That, and the whole issue with the concrete reacting with their atmosphere says to me that they really didn't plan very well. I'd like to see someone try to make a contained ecosystem that is engineered with the sole purpose of keeping some humans alive and comfortable. I wonder how many species of plants and animals would be necessary for such a thing.
It seems like it could be a lot simpler than what Biosphere 2 tried to do, and a lot more likely to be successful. It would also be beneficial in helping us figure out what we'll need for long-term space missions.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but don't the Sonny Bono act, the DMCA, and the filesharing lawsuits really help further erode corporate control over the media?
I mean, if a band wants to make a song that "the man" doesn't want you to hear, they'll have a hard time getting it published by a big record label or played on the radio stations that are all owned by ClearChannel. So, maybe they'll release it for free over the Internet. Not that they will be, if the government ever were successful at eliminating all copyright infringement, it's only the non-corporate-sanctioned independent voices that people will be able to find on filesharing programs.
i just don't see the correlation between copyright enforcement measures and centralized culture control. the copyrights are just there so that they can ensure that they profit off of the products that the centralized culture control has already generated a demand for.
so... are 9/11's like the LoC-type unit for catastrophic loss of life?
I don't think they'll do any good if you've got WiFi...
this kinda reminds me of this story about the pricing of the original mac. their initial target price was $500, but the final design ended up being around $1,500. Then due to incresed costs and a lame decision by the board, it ended up starting out at $2,500, which prevented them from ever gaining a huge marketshare, which led to all sorts of problems later on.
maybe now with microsoft looking pretty weak with their security problems and continually delaying longhorn, and with the problems intel is having and the rest of the PC market is having Apple is seeing this as a chance to make up for past mistakes and finally sell the "computer for everyone" they originally intended.
so, what color shirt should someone wear to block an ultraviolet or infrared laser?
...and twelve more who have to mod those other twelve up...
well, warning systems would be good for tsunamis and such, but aside from getting out of the way and making stronger buildings, there's not much that can be done to prevent such things from happening. it's not like we could oil the tectonic plates to make them move smoothly, or something. if we detect an asteroid decades out, we might be able to do something about it. we have to ignore the millions of possibilities of things that could randomly kill us at any moment because we can't do much to prevent them from happening, but we truly get alarmed when we see something coming.
Score:-1, Bad at math
with all the free and open wi-fi points in the world, i guess it's time file sharers went wireless. i suppose that could be a viable defense, as well, if one has an open wi-fi router at home. that is, of course, until the po-po confiscates your computer and finds all your warez on it...
duh- i was making fun of your misformed substitution. i guess you wouldn't get a joke anyway, because you clearly didn't recognize that the original post was a joke as well...
Then there is be water on Mars!
huh?
note: not a good idea if your name is john smith, robert jones, etc...
i'm a temp, and my present employer blocks gmail and all other webmail (strangely, they don't block slashdot, EXCEPT for linux.slashdot.org), so I've got my gmail account forwarded to my work e-mail address. I wish I could tell gmail not to forward messages it has identified as spam. So far it has identified all spam perfectly, I don't want to receive the spam at work anyway, and the company sends a lot of HTML formatted mail with images, so I can't really turn off inline images in outlook for security. Do you hear me google? A "do not forward messages identified as spam" checkbox would be nice...
I said you were being a dick because you interpreted my assertion that "they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable" to mean that I'm too stupid to know how to find things, and to mean that it was "automatically useless to all users"
Certainly things can be found on Gnutella, and it may work for lots of people- my only point was that what most people want is to type in what they're looking for and get it. In my experience, DC++ has come closest to this for even the most obscure files, but maybe we're looking for different kinds of stuff...
just try not to think (or sound as though you think) that just because people don't do things the way you do them that they are too dumb to figure them out.
(all necrophelia jokes aside)
i don't really care if my porn is live. do you?
no need to be a dick. the point is that if it's not easy for someone to figure out how to find stuff, it's not really where it should be yet. BitTorrent was pretty good once one found Suprnova, DC++ is pretty good once one figures out how to connect to a hub and put their settings on active. Similar things with eMule and gnutella, but none of them is simple search'n'get. gnutella or kazaa being probably the closest to that, except that it's often seach'n'get something else...
this is the same sort of thing that happened with the original Napster. Any sort of centralization is going to become an immediate target for MPAA/RIAA legal action. At least with BitTorrent there can be other sources for .torrent files, but so long as they can shut down any large repositories like suprnova.org, finding files will be too cumbersome for all but the most determined users.
DC++ seems to have the same weakness, with the hosts, but as long as host lists are legal, it will remain pretty easy to find new hosts. Gnutella seems pretty safe, but they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable.
alas, it is only a matter of time before something comes along that perfects this problem and leaves the MPAA/RIAA with no option but to come up with a new business model. Free music seems to me to be a fine way to advertise a touring artist who is making money off of the shows. Movies may have to resort to product placement, or something.
"how to give"